October 2010

Winds will begin to subside tonight as we start to get cooler again. Temperatures this week will generally be below average, which is likely a trend that will prevail over the next couple of months, with occasional warm shots between extended periods of cooler weather. The first snow flakes for D.C. could be seen this week as a coastal storm forms around mid-week. The models are still having a tough time on precipitation timing and placement, but it looks like the region should get a healthy dose of rain late Wednesday night through Thursday. On the back end of this system, cooler air and lingering moisture could bring some light snow into the region, with some accumulation expected on the western side of the Appalachians through the second half of the week.

This mid-week system will be very hard to predict as two pockets of energy, one lifting from the Southeast and one diving in from the Northern Plains, collide over the Mid-Atlantic region. How these two pockets of energy evolve and interact will be crucial in bringing precipitation to different parts of the region.

As this system lifts to the north and east, northerly winds will keep the region on the cooler side over the weekend. Another low pressure system could form off of the East Coast late next weekend, which could bring some wintry precipitation to the coastal areas as we head into next week.

The summer-like conditions are finally over. It’s time to prepare for winter.

Time for some screen grabs! Lateness due to massive amounts of sleeping, heh. Had to catch up after the crazy week. First two are from the first storm, which had a nice shelf cloud and some blue/green color to it. Last image is from a second storm that had produced a tornado in MD but failed to hold together over the Chesapeake Bay as we intercepted it on the western edge of DELMARVA. It still had a non-rotating wall cloud, though!

On the way back from DELMARVA on a failed chase… saw a couple of non-rotating wall clouds, but I didn’t go with my original area, which was Fredericksburg/Richmond, VA. There were multiple tornadoes in that region. The frustration is mounting, which makes me yearn that much more for my upcoming Plains chase next spring.

Pictures from the last few days of consecutive chasing will be up tomorrow.

EDIT:

HUGE thanks to Jason for taking the time to go on the chases… it was rough on both of us. He drove about 25-30 total hours in 3 days! Time to recuperate and catch up on chores/work at home.

On the road home from the Richmond area… went to test out the storms, but nothing happened. Grabbed some random scenery shots and that was pretty much the day. We got to test out Jason’s recent repairs on the long drive and everything turned out well.

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Highlights:

Epic system over the mid-country – A powerful low pressure system with the ability to break lowest-pressure records will quickly deepen over the next couple of days. A severe weather outbreak is imminent in the Midwest!

Pacific Northwest gets several shots of precip. – Several low pressure systems will work their way into the western U.S. this week, with this weekend’s system gathering potential to bring more severe weather to the East.

Warm mid-country – Warm air continues to surge northward from the south, which will give the middle half of the country above normal temperatures through most of this week.

Two shots of lake-effect possible – Lake-effect rain and snow showers could form behind the mid-week system and behind a clipper system this weekend.

The 16Z update from the SPC was a little surprising when they decided to pull the 2% and 5% TOR risk area to within chase range in SE VA. Jason and I will be going over strategy to see if we can pull off a chase today.